A whiter shade of pale

We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels across the floor
I was feeling kind of seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, 'There is no reason
and the truth is plain to see.'
But I wandered through my playing cards
and would not let her be
one of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might have just as well've been closed

She said, 'I'm home on shore leave,'
though in truth we were at sea
so I took her by the looking glass
and forced her to agree
saying, 'You must be the mermaid
who took Neptune for a ride.'
But she smiled at me so sadly
that my anger straightway died

If music be the food of love
then laughter is its queen
and likewise if behind is in front
then dirt in truth is clean
My mouth by then like cardboard
seemed to slip straight through my head
So we crash-dived straightway quickly
and attacked the ocean bed

I was cleaning up in the kitchen the other day when A Whiter Shade of Pale came on and I tried to sing, or sync, along.  I can't for the life of me remember when I first heard the song, although it must have been years after Procol Harum had a big hit with it.  I know because I remember my very first pop song -- "Beautiful Sunday" by the singer Daniel Boone, which came out years later and had many of the school children in Singapore humming along happily for a while, and yelling "Hey, hey, hey."  When I read that PM Lee Hsien Loong sang a song about Sunday mornings at a recent karaoke session, I chuckled and recalled my school days fondly.  I am quite sure that it was this song that the PM sang, and not "Sunday Morning" by the Velvet Underground, which would have been a different proposition altogether.